Investigation of the Issue of Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of large numbers of trees, along with the
loss of the animals that habitat the area.
Deforestation occurs in many ways. Most of the clearing is done for
agricultural purposes-grazing cattle, planting crops. Poor farmers
chop down a small area (typically a few acres) and burn the tree
trunks-a process called Slash and Burn agriculture. Intensive, or
modern, agriculture occurs on a much larger scale, sometimes
deforesting several square miles at a time. Large cattle pastures
often replace rain forest to grow beef for the world market.
Commercial logging is another common form of deforestation, cutting
trees for sale as timber or pulp. Logging can occur selectively-where
only the economically valuable species are cut-or by clear cutting,
where all the trees are cut. Commercial logging uses heavy machinery,
such as bulldozers, road graders, and log skidders, to remove cut
trees and build roads, which is just as damaging to a forest overall
as the chainsaws are to the individual trees.
The causes of deforestation are very complex. A competitive global
economy drives the need for money in economically challenged tropical
countries. At the national level, governments sell logging concessions
to raise money for projects, to pay international debt, or to develop
industry. For example, Brazil had an international debt of $159
billion in 1995, on which it must make payments each year(3). The
logging companies seek to harvest the forest and make profit from the
sales of pulp and valuable hardwoods such as mahogany.
Deforestation by a peasant farmer is often ...
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...es water flow is totally stopped,
because reservoirs are built, which also flood local areas, submerging
local habitats(3).
Today, in most developed counties, trees are being replanted faster
than they can be cut down, so desertification is not as severe a
threat.
In developing countries, by contrast, poverty has created a threat to
trees, which can be sold or used as fuel. In these areas erosion is
also common, and along with deforestation, it is causing heavy
desertification.
References:
Deforestation
1) The Choice: Doomsday or Arbor Day-by Jocelyn Stock and Andy Rochen
2) Biology Notes –by Mary P.
3) The Causes of Tropical Deforestation -by John Revington
Desertification
1) Biology Notes –Mary P.
2) Desertification –Kathie Watson
3) Desertification –Dr Michael Pidwirney
Philip, M., & William F. 2004, ‘Tropical Deforestation and Greenhouse-gas Emissions’, Ecological Applications, (no publication information), Volume 14, Issue 4, pp. 982–986, viewed 23 April 2010,
This practice is a quick and economically inexpensive method or clearing land for grazing or raising crops. It is accomplished by cutting down all the trees and brush in an area, as fast as possible (Slash) and then setting fire to the area, to get rid of all of the mess (Burn). It has proved to be a quite efficient way to pointlessly destroy the forest, because the land shortly becomes arid and barren without the trees there to maintain it's former richness. This is compounded by the lack of crop-rotation, which only speeds up the process of dry des...
Deforestation: an act of pure terrorism towards the forests of the Earth, the most evil and brutal punishment to wildlife imaginable. Every year, thousands of trees in multiple forests are chopped down either for the wood humans can make resources for or to make room for more humans to grow as they continue to rise in population. Many problems can result from deforestation: loss of habitat to animals that rely on the forest trees to survive, resulting in endangerment or extinction as the animals must forcefully move to another place to thrive in numbers while avoiding the invading humans, and the effects of potential global warming can occur due to the carbon dioxide released by the machinery used to bulldoze the trees down, and only a few
Environmental issues affect every life on this planet from the smallest parasite to the human race. There are many resources that humans and animal needs to survive; some of the most obvious resources come from the forests. Forests make up a large percentage of the globe. The forests have global implications not just on life but on the quality of it. Trees improve the quality of the air that species breath, determine rainfall and replenish the atmosphere. The wood from the forests are used everyday form many useful resources. Moreover, thinning the forests increases the amount of available light, nutrients and water for the remaining trees. Deforestation (forest thinning) is one of the most critical issues of environmental problems that are occurring today.
General Information: First off, deforestation is the clearing of forests or areas with trees to be converted into something else after. There are a few different ways forests are cleared. Clear cutting is simply removing everything in sight. Patch cutting is the removal of trees in specified patches. Strip cutting is removing trees in selected strips. The most environmentally friendly method is known as selective cutting. This is the removal of only selected trees, leaving the others un-harmed. The technique used most during deforestation is the slash and burn technique. This uses the basic cutting method of clear cutting, but afterwards everything that remains is burned to ash.
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
Nowadays deforestation is the one of the most important and controversial environmental issues in the world. Deforestation is cutting down, clearing away or burning trees or forests. Particularly tropical rainforests are the most waning type of forests because of its location in developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, central African countries and Brazil. Deforestation rate in those regions is high enough to worry about, because of large economic potential of forest areas. As the result of causes such as agriculture land expansion, logging for timber, fire blazing and settling infrastructure there might be serious impacts in future. For instance, extinction of endemic species of animals and plants which will be feral, increase of greenhouse gas emissions which may lead to global warming and consecutive catastrophes, destruction of home for indigenous residents which is considered as violation of human rights. Some people can argue with these drawbacks telling that deforestation have more valuable benefits such as growth of economics, production of food and providing better opportunities for life for poor families. However, these benefits are quite temporary and government of that countries and world organisations tries to halt deforestation proposing several solutions. Deforestation problem is especially acute in the Brazilian Amazon, where its rate is much high comparing with other regions. This paper will describe world-wide rainforests, causes and effects of deforestation, and evaluate possible solutions of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Revington, John. The causes of Tropical Deforestation". New Renaissance Magazine. Vol. 3, No. 2.
Agreements of this type have been instituted in Bolivia, Madagascar, Zambia, and other countries.” (K. Lerner and B. Lerner 1). That quote suggests that this potential solution will pay for countries’ debts and in return, the countries have to protect their forests. Since the article states that agreements of this kind have already been instituted, I think that this could work to help prevent deforestation and some of the consequences that
Though deforestation has increased at an alarming rate throughout the past fifty years, deforestation has been performed during the course of history. According to the World Resources Institute, a majority of the world’s enduring naturally occurring forests are found in Alaska, Canada, Russia and the Northwestern Amazon. Research has demonstrated forests are more likely to be destroyed and repurposed where economic revenues tied to agriculture and pasture are prominent, typically attributed to advantageous weather conditions, or lower expenses of demolishing the forest and delivering merchandises to the global
To obtain and transport has to be quick, easy and the cost has to be minimal. To make all these possible roads are being built through forests. These causes a great deal of damage to the forests because more trees have to be removed again to mine this merchandise. Brazil is once again a prime. example of forest destruction in the United States.
The single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, mostly for subsistence, which is growing crops or raising livestock to meet daily needs. The conversion to agricultural land usually results from multiple direct factors. For example, countries build roads into remote areas to improve overland transportation of goods. The road development itself causes a limited amount of deforestation. But roads also provide entry to previously inaccessible—and often unclaimed—land. Logging, both legal and illegal, often follows road expansion (and in some cases is the reason for the road expansion). When loggers have harvested an area’s valuable timber, they move on. The roads and the logged areas become a magnet for settlers—farmers and ranchers who slash and burn the remaining forest for cropland or cattle pasture, completing the deforestation chain that began with road building. In other cases, forests that have been degraded by logging become fire-prone and are eventually deforested by repeated accidental fires from adjacent farms or pastures.
Allen, Julia C., and Douglas F. Barnes. "The Cause of Deforestation in Developing Countries." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 1985: 163-184. Print.
The Australian Rainforest Memorandum, which recognizes the rights of traditional land owners is endorsed by over 40 NGO’s. Working Towards an end to foreign debt is yet another crucial role to ending deforestation. The condition imposed by the International Monetary Fund often forces heavily indebted countries to sell their national resources far in excess of sustainable exploitation.
Scientists themselves are just beginning to understand the serious problems caused by deforestation. Deforestation occurs all over the world by all types of people. Peasant farmers even add to the problem because in most tropical countries the farmers are very poor only making between eight hundred and fifty four hundred dollars annually (NASA Facts). Therefore, they do not have enough money to buy what they need to live therefore they must farm to raise crops for food and to sell. In these poor countries the majority of people are peasant farmers this farming adds up to a great deal of deforestation. These farmers chop down a small area of trees for there plot to farm on and burn the tree trunks (NASA Facts). The combined number of farmers maintaining this process creates a great deal of clearing and burning of the land they need to cultivate, which results in land being treeless. Commercial logging is also another common form of deforestation. This commercial logging wipes out massive amounts of land sometimes deforesting several miles at...